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SeeBeyond prepares European push

'Pragmatic' Europeans become target of Ray Lane venture

US-based integration software specialist SeeBeyond Technology, which counts ex-Oracle number two Ray Lane as its chairman, claims to have signed 30 contracts with European-based Global 200 companies.

The company said details of the contracts will be revealed in the next few months.

Speaking in New York, Jim Demetriades, SeeBeyond's founder and chief executive, said the firm's more visibile financial viability - it's just made its first quarterly profit as a public company - would help it attract more European customers.

He predicted that European sales would increase from around 28 per cent of its total revenues currently, to over 40 per cent in the next year or so.

"European companies tend to be more analytical and pragmatic buyers than in the US, and its clear that our position in the third quarter did concern some potential customers," said Demetriades.

Former Oracle senior executive Ray Lane, chairman at SeeBeyond, added that because of their more pragmatic approach, Europe-based corporates limited their exposure to the overspending and disappointments of the kinds of enterprise projects undertaken in the US during the dotcom explosion, and were now better placed to try and bring their information systems together.

"We in the US were more aggressive in what we thought technology could do. European executives felt they were right in thinking the US was too exuberant in deploying technology, and they may well be right," said Lane.